<\/a>Quinn Aboudara, coordinator of the Klawock Indigenous Stewards Forest Partnership, works with youth from the local Alaskan Youth Stewards crew to harvest salmon for the community. In addition to forestry work, community forest partnerships also take a holistic approach, and lead seasonal efforts to harvest and provide foods for their local communities. (Photo by Lee House)<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
As a part of these growing efforts, tribally-led “community forest partnerships” have risen to the surface as impactful models that work on the forest holistically, deploying local crews to work across management and ownership boundaries rather than confined within. This approach is made possible through multi-partner agreements that hinge heavily on collaboration. By working cooperatively, communities are returning to how this region has been stewarded by the Lingít, Haida and Tsimshian for thousands of years: as whole, interconnected lands and waters.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
Three community forest partnerships exist to date in Southeast Alaska with similar efforts on the rise in the region. More than just a job, these stewardship crews are rooted in community, working towards the benefit of future generations and listening to current community stewardship priorities. They are creating capable crew members, training in forestry skills, collaborating with state and federal agency staff, and centering local and traditional knowledge to sustainably steward watersheds and forest habitats that are inextricably linked to the ways of life of the region. This approach helps move the means of management action and job creation to the communities and tribes who have lived in relationship with these lands and waters since time immemorial.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
Hoonah Native Forest Partnership (HNFP)<\/strong><\/p>\n\t\t\t\t Eight years ago the forest partnership model came to fruition on Huna lands with the creation of the Hoonah Native Forest Partnership. The partnership started with the common guiding vision of “a thriving community with access to abundant resources and workforce opportunities that consist of members who work together to improve economic, ecological, and social conditions,” setting the scene for future partnerships to come.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t The partnership is comprised of the Hoonah Indian Association, City of Hoonah, Sealaska, Huna Totem, The Nature Conservancy, the Sustainable Southeast Partnership (SSP), Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G), Forest Service (USFS) and Natural Resources Conservation Service.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t Hoonah Indian Association Environmental Coordinator Ian Johnson says “the HNFP started in its first years looking from a perspective of what’s on the land, what condition these resources are in, and listening to what people want from these lands.” Discussions focused on project opportunities that the partnership could work on together to build economic opportunity, climate resilience, food and harvest resources, and recreational opportunities across the 205,000-acre working area.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t Johnson continues, “collectively, we decided to work in a focused area to be efficient in working together.” The area that the collective chose to work on first was the Spasski Watershed (one of six watersheds in the HNFP working area). “It’s a really high-value watershed — the local community relies on that watershed for aquatic resources, deer, fish and berries,” says Johnson.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t A juvenile coho salmon rests in an eddy in Shorty Creek on Kuiu Island. (Photo by Lee House)<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t Members of the HNFP crew have steadily made progress over the years, pushing through brush, over logs, wading in streams, clamoring through dense young growth, and hauling tools day in and day out. The work has included meticulous inventorying of forest, streams and roadways, thinning dense areas of young-growth forest, restoring fish passages where roads cross streams, rehabilitating fish habitat through stream restoration projects, and continuous data collection.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t Phillip Sharclane, who has been an HNFP crew member since the start of the partnership reflects on the years of work, “It’s really a great feeling to be a part of this restorative process. The forest partnership is really out there to have a positive impact on future resources and, most of all, my family, my people and my community.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t Today nearly every restoration prescription for the 33,097-acre Spasski Watershed has been completed by the HNFP. Next year they will set their sites on the second priority area, the Game Creek\/Port Frederick Frontal Watershed.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t Sharclane continues: “Knowing that I’m having a positive impact is awesome. Knowing that I’m out there thinning a forest that my son is going to be hunting in. I know that he’s going to be able to traverse it really well because of a prescription that I put on it, and I’m happy that he’s going to be able to go get some fish from a stream that I possibly restored.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t Ḵéex̱’ Ḵwáan Community Forest Partnership (KKCFP)<\/strong><\/p>\n\t\t\t\t “It feels good to give back, helping to rebuild salmon habitat,” says Travis Adams, wiping a bead of sweat from his brow while looking upstream. Adams is the field leader for the Ḵéex̱’ Ḵwáan Community Forest Partnership working alongside his three friends (and fellow crew members), Rob, Cam and Angelo this year. During a sunny week in July the KKCFP crew, alongside the USFS Petersburg Ranger District and the Southeast Alaska Watershed Coalition (SAWC), worked to add large wood structures into Shorty Creek on Kuiu Island to foster salmon spawning and rearing habitat. Beyond Kuiu Island having important salmon-bearing streams that provide fish for the residents of Kake, the area is also traditional Lingít homelands to many in Kake, including Adams.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t From the HNFP’s success, the KKCFP based its model with the goal of achieving “a resilient blend of timber, salmon, and wildlife production while supporting a diversified economy and healthy watersheds.” Starting in 2019, core partners include Sealaska, Kake Tribal, the Organized Village of Kake, the City of Kake, ADF&G, Southeast Alaska Land Trust, SSP and USFS.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t Water peels past Adams and the crew’s ankles as they stand in the stream. The flow creates eddies behind their boots that juvenile coho salmon come up to rest in. The structures the crew is building in the stream are, in essence, doing the same thing on a larger scale: slowing water down, building complexity, and shifting rock and sediment deposits to make varying depths of pool and eddy habitat for the fish. Without large old-growth trees keeping stream banks intact and eventually falling into the stream to add structure, those streams are coming undone from currents that flow through the forest unchecked, flushing away precious fish habitat. The crew’s restorative action mimics what older, larger trees would have created, if not logged, by eventually falling into the stream.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<\/a>